Yes this is wet-cupping (or bloodcupping) as opposed to the normal 'dry'-cupping. Has apparently quite a few applications eg pain-relief, detox, improving blood circulation and removing inflammation eg arthritis. I have had done a few times on the back and on the neck and head for headache/ migraine.

So you are right it is an extreme 'upgrade' to cupping, however under skilled hands, it is definitely not as painful as it looks (you would have expected otherwise the patient in the video to be kicking and screaming but clearly he seems content to continue). However in the wrong hands, and if too much blood is removed and done wrongly on say a diabetic, or someone with low blood pressure, or done with sub-standard hygiene, it can prove fatal... So you ideally need an experienced, competent and medically savvy practitioner,ideally a doctor who knows this skill.

...in fact it was the therapy that killed George Washington I believe (done wrongly and too many times) ...

Yes very good point, which is often raised... and I don't claim to know to answer however have heard some interesting theories which obviously need to be scientifically tested before they can be bandied around as fact..

But since you ask, here is one theory that I have come across that makes quite good sense to me (not saying it is the truth mind):

To explain it I will need to explain the wet-cupping procedure in detail in the manner that I have normally seen it done (so please bear with me), also we have to imagine what is happening internally based on the anatomy/physiology of the body as obviously when you look at a human standing still in front of you it is not a statue made of stone, but bones, muscle, organs, and most importantly for this exercise a 'pump' (ie heart) in the chest with 'pipes' leading into and out of this pump that branch out throughout the body getting smaller and smaller the further they go away from that pump

AGAIN, to get the disclaimers out of the way, I emphasise that this is not fact just one theory, and nor am I any medical professional, so the I will try to explain in lay terms (that I have heard from one medical person, again his own opinion and understanding of hijama but again not being presented as fact), however obviously there are others in the medical world who can understand, and explain and even successful refute what I am saying, so again this is just one suggestion, please everyone feel free to argue, correct and prove it wrong if you wish:

Right, back to the procedure, hijama, as usually done, is done in basically 2 steps:

1) Dry-cupping for 3-5 mins or even upto 10 minutes. This causes a bruise like mark on the site of the cup when blood has collected due to the negative pressure (ie the pull / suction of the cup). While initially I used to think this was an insignificant step given the more extreme steps of 'scratching' the skin surface and drawing blood out in the wet-cupping (ie the second step), I have now come to appreciate what the dry-cupping is doing which is quite important in answer to your question.

Again imagine what is happening at the 'pumps and pipes' level in the body while the dry-cupping is going on. The heart is pumping blood throughout the body, and I believe it takes blood about a minute to do a full-cycle of the body. So if I put a dry-cup on your back for 5 minutes, then blood in your body has (or so I understand) passed 5 times under the cup, just imagine now that the blood is like a river with water as well as some heavy stuff like dirt, sand and stones flowing in it. The cup on your back will now be slowing down the blood-flow in your 'river of life' at that point, and what I understand now happens (rightly or wrongly) is that while the blood will still flow (unless the therapist does such a strong suction that blood stops flowing completely! in which case you are in trouble LOL), the 'sand and stones' in your blood ie the heavy stuff start getting trapped under where the cup is. So when you then move on to the next step...

2) Making the light scratches on the skin and applying the cup again for wet-cupping
Firstly also let me clarify, the 'scratches' are exactly that! Most therapists will do very light scratches on the skin that are more uncomfortable than painful (but again varies from person to person some feel more pain than others), and the scratches themselves hardly draw any blood (again varies from person to person, human body is quite complex with so many variables that give different results eg skin thickness, skin type, blood types, and even the weather plays a role here, as you will find in hotter countries blood flows more readily than in cold countries). So the scratches which are on the surface of the skin are drawing blood from the capillaries (I believe that is right word) and it is nothing at all like puncturing a vein or artery (in fact my pain score for giving blood for a blood test in a hospital would 8 or 9 out of 10, I would say having hijama done in comparison has a pain score of 1 or 2 out of 10 ... so appearances can be deceptive so don't rely on the scary youtube videos, speak to someone who has had it done, or try it yourself LOL).

Anyway back to the hijama, so once the cup is applied, it normally starts drawing blood very slowly, and therefore it is left on for say again 3-5 and upto 10 minutes. The idea now is, the 'heavy stuff' that was trapped in step 1 above, is what is mainly being pulled out (as well as some inevitable healthy 'liquid' blood but that is part of the deal) however the majority of the stuff that comes out in hijama treatments tends to be heavy, dark, thick almost like jelly or liver (obviously some of that is explained by the normal clotting process but obviously some detailed scientific studies would be needed to confirm that all the 'junk' that is normally removed in the cups is entirely do to just the clotting process or is there indeed some major heavy junk being removed from your blood-stream). (Again I would point out, that this also varies from person to person, mostly people have this junk coming out, however on some rare occasions I have seen what looks like healthy bright red blood coming through... I dunno how to explain that, maybe the person was 'superfit' and had no junk to get rid of, or again maybe again things like blood type, skin type etc come into play here.)

So hope that explains the procedure a little and some of the reasoning behind it, and how the 'filtering' is possibly occurring and why it is sometimes also described as a detox/ 'human oil-change' and a preventative therapy (ie it may be removing the potential 'troublemakers' from your blood before they get a chance to cause any serious damage).

With regards to your second question, how the therapist knows when to stop. Again varies from person to person, but in most cases, blood normally stops at some point (sometimes it's about a third to half of the cup or sometimes even less, in some it continues filling, then the therapist will empty the cup and may apply again upto two more times (according to one guideline) but not more than that. In most cases you actually the red blood stop coming through at some point, and then a clear waterlike liquid coming through in small drops which I understand is also a cue for some therapists telling them it is sign to stop the hijama, this I understand is the body's defence / emergency system, the white blood cells being sent to the site to 'investigate and resolve' what the problem is ie the 'fake attack' on the body that is being done by hijama... and in fact this is another theory : hijama is thought to strengthen the immune system and one way this is explained is: by creating a 'fake attack' on the body, the body mobilises the immune system which as a result becomes stronger (i can't explain why but i guess someone with medical knowledge can explain better but I suppose it is a bit like the way vaccines are supposed to make you immune to some deadly diseases, by creating a 'fake attack' on the body that the body can easily recover and learn from and be ready for the 'real thing'.)

So apologies, although a bit long-winded, I hope you follow some of the possible reasoning behind hijama, once again I do not claim that these are hard facts, but theories at least worth investigating further.

But let me know your thoughts, and once again apologies for the long read. And if there is any bit that I haven't explained properly or sounds confusing then let me know and I can try to clarify further...

Kind regards

Originally Posted by mikiesbuk

hi ahealth...

wow - i am reading up on this and it does appear to be quite extreme.. !

the silly question i have is this... apologies for my ignorance and my curiosity...

apparantly the purpose of this is to remove "bad blood/" and then new "good blood " is regenerated/ replaced ???

Very very curious as to how hijama/and or therapist is "filtering" the "old/bad blood cells" from "old/bad good blood" and how on earth the therapist would know how much to drain/when to stop...

For the record, I am a medical professional (doctor) and wet-cupping is no more advanced than using leeches.

If anyone feels that this is a beneficial treatment, please post up a link to the evidence proving this. My work in hospital / covering events is based entirely on evidence available through years of trials & research undertaken by others. I'm unable to source any actual evidence that wet-cupping does anything other than make you bleed a bit.